"She has no diabetes or hypertension so can eat as many chocolates and sweets as she likes."

An active life and commitment to work also seem to be part of the world's oldest woman's long life tactics.

"She was always a woman who fought. She was still sewing and weaving until about two years ago," her granddaughter said.

"She is entirely lucid. She blows your mind with her stories from the revolution."

But Leandra won't be recognised in the record books for her long life, the title of the world's oldest woman goes to Japan's Misao Okawa, who says learning to relax and sleeping for eight hours a night are the key to a long life, and has managed to hang on to her birth certificate over her 116 years.